Optical Mouse

[APwrs]

Greetings everyone. I just recently purchased a Memorex ScrollPro optical mouse, with 800 dpi. I'm running Mandrake 9.0 with KDE. Just to set a basis for comparison, it works fine under Windows without installing any of the drivers that came with it.

In Linux (or perhaps I should say in KDE) when I move the mouse ever so slightly, the system doesn't seem to recognize that I've moved the mouse at all. It recognizes large and fast movements, but if I move the mouse just a little bit, the mouse cursor on the screen doesn't move. In Windows, any movement of the mouse, even very small ones, cause the mouse cursor to move.

I've adjusted the threshold and acceleration values a lot, but nothing seems to help with this particular issue. Any help or advice on this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[serz]

This is what I have in my /etc/X11/XF86config, mouse section:

Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

That's what you need.

[dkeav]

check the protocal, it should most likely be IMPS/2

[APwrs]

The mouse is set up correctly in the config file. The scroll wheel works fine, and the mouse itself works too, but only after a fashion. In KDE's control center, I have the mouse set with a pointer acceleration of 3 and a pointer threshold of 2. With my old ball-based mouse, that worked just fine, but as I've said, I have now upgraded to an optical mouse.

The problem is not with the mouse not working. The problem is that if I move the mouse in a big movement, across the mouse pad, etc. then the mouse cursor moves as it should. However, if I move the mouse very slowly, then the cursor doesn't move, just as though I hadn't moved the mouse at all.

When I move the mouse very slowly the exact same way in Windows, the cursor does indeed move, even though I never installed the drivers that came with the mouse. Therefore, I know it's not an issue with the mouse itself.

I've adjusted the acceleration and threshold values quite a bit, but as I stated above, none of that helped any. It doesn't seem to want to recognize the fact that the mouse has moved when I move it very slowly... only when I move the mouse more quickly. Not only does this make precise, detail-oriented tasks hard, but it also makes using the system hard in general. If someone has any clue as to why I'm seeing this behaviour, any idea as to how to resolve it, I would be appreciative. Again, thank you.

[dkeav]

is this one of those dual optical mouse that may require windows drivers to work properly? or it may be too new for much linux support yet? or KDE is not handeling it properly? there are tons of reasons why its not working as you want it to, but since we do not know what you have done to it and what you have, we only have what you have told us, then we can only offer that which has our mice working

ive been using a explorer optical with linux for about 2-3 years, has worked fine in every distro, OS you can think of

[JohnT]

I dont think I ever changed my mouse parameters in Xconfig going from my old scroll to the optical scroll.....never had to monkey with the KDE settings either...always used at default. Your problem might be related to your vid card set-up. What card do you have?

[APwrs]

I have an nVidia GForce 4 MX 440 with the drivers from nVidia's website. The mouse isn't special in any way... it's just the standard three button sort (two buttons and the scroll wheel) and that's it. It doesn't rely on special Windows drivers, as I installed no drivers for it... simply plugged it in and away I went. I also wouldn't quite say that the problem is specific to KDE, as I use a graphical login before I even get to KDE and it reacts the same way in there as well. I have ordered Mandrake 9.2 and if this issue can't be resolved by the time that gets here, I certainly hope that it works better there. It would be nice at least.

[Modorf]

http://www.google.com/linux?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=optical+mouse+resolution
http://koala.ilog.fr/anyboard/MouseWheel/posts/1454.html
http://www.linuxtransfer.com/h/configuration_changingmouse.htm

This should do it.
N


Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Resolution" "800"
EndSection

[APwrs]

Thank you very much Modorf. Adding that Resolution line to the config file was exactly what needed to be done. I really appreciate it.

[Modorf]

Your Welcome.
N

[JohnT]

Didn't even think of that one:p
Setting Option "Resolution" "800" in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 or /etc/X11/XF86Config works for ps2 mouse. Higher number faster mouse, lower number slower mouse movement.